As part of its series of IGN First videos for The Last Guardian, the website has published a new eight-minute interview with game director, Fumito Ueda, in which he talks about the game’s development period, its design, the transition to PlayStation 4, and more. You can listen to the full interview by watching the video above but for those who prefer reading, the kind folks over at Gematsu have provided the transcript below.
With regards to The Last Guardian‘s lengthy development period, Ueda has said that it was “unexpected” for him because he was hoping to “create something good in a short span of time.” Although it’s been ten years since Shadow of the Colossus was released, Ueda says that the Japan studio wasn’t actively developing the game during this period.
We weren’t always in active development so it’s really difficult to provide an accurate number in terms of the development period, but one thing I can say is that we thought that it was going to be shorter, or we thought that Ico and Shadow of the Colossus took a long time to develop, so one of of the missions of The Last Guardian was that we wanted to create something good in a short period of time, so the fact that it took a long time to develop was completely unexpected for me.
The Last Guardian was initially in development for the PlayStation 3. The transition to PS4 was difficult for Ueda to accept. However, considering the last-gen console’s dwindling market, he’s happy to release the game as a PS4-exclusive.
When it was decided that the game would be transitioned to PS4 it was difficult for me to accept. Now that I look back at it, the PS3 market has become smaller at this point and now I think the PS4 market is the main market, so I am happy to have this title as a PS4 exclusive title, but when the decision was first made I had some difficulty and I felt a little disappointed because I wanted to release this game earlier.
The delay somewhat proved to be a blessing in disguise because we’re told that the game has seen a number of improvements in terms of quality, graphics, details, and more. As far as its design is concerned, The Last Guardian largely remains the same with some minor changes.
Last but not least, Ueda says that SIE Japan is working hard to release the game towards the end of this year. However, he’s unable to give a development completion percentage
I’ve never been on a game that has taken so long to develop, so a part of me feels sad, but a part of me feels like I just want to complete it.
For the full transcript, make sure to head over to Gematsu and watch IGN’s video above.
